Greetings!  It’s been quite some time since I last posted.  Being a first year teacher has been a wonderful experience, but it sure does take up a lot of time.  Anyway, before looking ahead to what should be an exciting weekend, I want to take a minute to review some highlights from January.  January 2020 has gone down as one of the warmest ones we have ever seen here in Salem.  The month ended 4.2 degrees above normal which is significant.  For a comparison on the other side of the scale, the cold February we had last year was 4.39 degrees below normal.

And how strange that for the 3rd year in a row we have seen a warmer than normal January only to have some sort of snow event in February or March.  2017 was the last time we had snow in January.  I’m currently working on a couple of graphs and I’m not finished with the data yet, but it appears as though February has been a snowier month than January during this past decade.  Interesting don’t you think???

Now onto something I think you will find far more interesting – we have a chance for snow now through Sunday night.  Details below:

Tonight through Saturday morning:  Here’s what the satellite from around 4:40pm looked like.  You can see a nice comma shaped storm off the Oregon coast.  This sucker is going to send moisture over us tonight while pulling in cold air in through the Gorge.  If things come together just right there is no reason why anyone couldn’t wake up tomorrow morning to a coating of snow.  Lows around 32 degrees.

Saturday:  I expect snow showers (maybe some ice pellets and rain mixed in during the afternoon) on and off through the day.  Sunbreaks at times should help “warm” us up into the low 40s.

Saturday night – Sunday morning:  Similar to tonight’s weather only colder and slightly drier which means anyone could see a dusting of snow.

Forecast Summary

I like our odds for seeing a little bit of snow (better than anything we have seen this winter), but around here even when the odds are good it’s still not a slam dunk.  Finally, like the vast majority of our snow events this one is very marginal.  We could easily end up with nothing, or things could come together just right for a “surprise” 2 or 3 inches.  It’s the weekend, and there is no school next week which means I’ll be on top of this storm with updates should things change.

I’m personally hoping for snow as it would be a nice break from all this virus stuff going on, plus who doesn’t like a good snow event???

You can use this link to track the satellite:

https://rammb-slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=goes-17&z=3&im=12&ts=1&st=0&et=0&speed=80&motion=loop&map=1&lat=0&opacity%5B0%5D=1&hidden%5B0%5D=0&pause=0&slider=-1&hide_controls=0&mouse_draw=0&follow_feature=0&follow_hide=0&s=rammb-slider&sec=conus&p%5B0%5D=geocolor&x=6725&y=2674

Click on this image from Mark Nelson’s weather page to see the regional temps:

Have a fantastic evening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!